The 2025 ECOS report ‘From Innovation to Overshoot: How data centre expansion risks derailing climate goals’ explores the rapid growth of Europe’s digital economy, driven largely by the data centres that support cloud computing, AI, and essential network services. While this expansion signals major technological progress, it also brings significant environmental concerns.
Data centres:
- drove nearly 60% of growth in electricity demand in the buildings sector in 2024
- rely heavily on water for cooling
- contribute to rising e‑waste due to frequent hardware turnover
The report underscores that many of these impacts are underreported, noting that emissions could be as much as 662% higher than publicly disclosed figures, in part because reliance on renewable energy certificates often masks true fossil fuel use.
New professional fields for new needs
The report highlights a growing need for professionals who can manage and optimise digital infrastructure while integrating sustainability.
This includes roles in data-centre architecture, high-performance computing, and cloud deployment, as well as emerging fields focused on energy efficiency, hardware lifecycle management, and environmental monitoring. The evolving regulatory landscape in the EU will further shape these roles, requiring digital professionals to be both technically skilled and policy aware.
The ECOS report presents Europe’s data-centre boom as both an opportunity and a responsibility, calling for a workforce equipped to ensure that digital innovation aligns with environmental stewardship.